Risky bubble play?

[Phil Van Sexton]

My brother was watching and commented that my play here was "too risky" given that 1 player is very short stacked. I thought I was being conservative by not pushing pre-flop.

The min-raise seemed to be the button's standard raise, so no reason to suspect a big hand.


Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t100 (4 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

Button (t1950)
SB (t285)
Hero (t915)
UTG (t4850)

Preflop: Hero is BB with K/images/graemlins/spade.gif, A/images/graemlins/heart.gif.
<font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Button raises to t200</font>, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, Hero calls t100.

Flop: (t450) J/images/graemlins/heart.gif, 4/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, K/images/graemlins/club.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Hero bets t715 (All-In)</font>

[rachelwxm]

You play it on safe side. Good play.
The only thing I might consider differently is check raise all in on flop. I think that is more risky than your play.

[Hood]

I would have pushed. The SB isn't that short stack (he can last a couple more rotations). If you push pre-flop chances are you'll take it there (button won't want to get involved).

[Scuba Chuck]

[ QUOTE ]
My brother was watching

[/ QUOTE ]

Who is your brother? /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Phil Van Sexton]

[ QUOTE ]
If you push pre-flop chances are you'll take it there (button won't want to get involved).

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe. The button was a tool, though. I felt like he had a reasonable hand and would probably call if I pushed. I could be wrong.

[Scuba Chuck]

Your move here is aggressive and risky. I'm sure this could be debated quite a bit. Villain could have KJ, KQ, QT, AJ, or other hands that might call your push. And it would be a real pisser if you went out in 4th.

[1C5]

What level was this at?

I would have done the same thing.

[Phil Van Sexton]

Sorry, this is 30/3.

Scuba, if you are looking for my brother, you'll have to play 5/1. Obviously, his opinion has no value, but it did get me thinking about a play that seemed really clear at the time.

[Bigwig]

I love the way you played this hand. Perfect, IMO.

[ReDeYES88]

Did you show your AKo after he mucked? Might be a good time for it. Could set up a stopNgo later, or at least let the table know that you can have a strong holding when you push a lot of chips.

[ilya]

I think you should push preflop. If you just call and fold the flop, you only have 715 left. You're gonna have to push that into two large stacks who aren't worried about outlasting the shortie. And if the shortie doubles up once, you'll be the short stack yourself.
I think pushing the flop is fine. You may get more chips by check-raising all-in, but pushing kills his odds if he has QT. And I bet hands like AJ get their chips in most of the time anyway.

[1C5]

I can see how people would push preflop also.

The only thing I would be concenred about would bea pocket pair (well not the only thing) but if that is what the guy had and Phil pushes, he would be called and then it would be a coinflip.

Phil, since you just called, what would have you done if the flop missed you?

[Scuba Chuck]

I think this is one of those "Do I play the cards, or play my position?" situations.

Frankly, I think the stop-n-go move is better than a PF push. But your flop was pretty dangerous, that Big stack might call with a draw or pair.

Here's my question. This is results oriented of course. But if you were to lose this hand, do you think you'd spend more time analyzing this situation?

FWIW, I think this play is far riskier, if UTG had been the caller.

[Phil Van Sexton]

[ QUOTE ]
The only thing I would be concenred about would be a pocket pair (well not the only thing) but if that is what the guy had and Phil pushes, he would be called and then it would be a coinflip.

[/ QUOTE ]

This was my thinking.

[ QUOTE ]
since you just called, what would have you done if the flop missed you?

[/ QUOTE ]

Check. I didn't intend to play this as a stop and go. I figured I was getting good odds to call his min-raise and try to flop an A or K. He wasn't an aggressive player, so I figured I might see the turn and river for free too, or even win against his Ax if we both miss.

[rachelwxm]

[ QUOTE ]
I think you should push preflop. If you just call and fold the flop, you only have 715 left. You're gonna have to push that into two large stacks who aren't worried about outlasting the shortie. And if the shortie doubles up once, you'll be the short stack yourself.
I think pushing the flop is fine. You may get more chips by check-raising all-in, but pushing kills his odds if he has QT. And I bet hands like AJ get their chips in most of the time anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think calling is less risk because:
1. I call min raise w AK because I play it as a drawing hand and getting really good odds to draw. Now if A or K hits, I have to believe my hand is best unless button is tricky or hitting set. On 2/3 time I do not hit, I check fold.

2. Button is not play well in this hand too imo. He should move in. ICM suggest that you need to win 70% of time to justify this call, so you cannot call even with AK. Now if you push back PF, and if he is decent enough, he would call if he has pocket pair and put you on a race.

3. from ICM,
you push and he fold 24.4
you push and win 29.9
fold 21
assuming if he call, you are 60% to win, and if he fold your push 50% of time, then pushing is better EV than folding, but pushing is definitely more risk than just call. Compared to folding, if you call, 1/3 time you increases chip by 550 and 2/3 time you lose another 100. A definite + ChipEV move than folding.

So of course, comparing calling with push is complicated becuse you have to know his calling percentage. But at 50%, I definitely like calling. /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[Phil Van Sexton]

[ QUOTE ]
Did you show your AKo after he mucked?

[/ QUOTE ]

Who said that he folded? I didn't post his move to avoid any bias in the responses. This hand has 2 other possible outcomes that you need to consider.

[ilya]

[ QUOTE ]

Check. I didn't intend to play this as a stop and go. I figured I was getting good odds to call his min-raise and try to flop an A or K. He wasn't an aggressive player, so I figured I might see the turn and river for free too, or even win against his Ax if we both miss.

[/ QUOTE ]

I like calling much better if he's so weak that he won't bet the flop OR the turn if you check it to him. But for some reason I got the impression that he'd been minraising a lot, so I thought he'd probably bet the flop.

[dfscott]

[ QUOTE ]
This hand has 2 other possible outcomes that you need to consider.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not to be result-oriented, but the fact that you say "2 other possible outcomes" makes me think you split.

[ilya]

[ QUOTE ]

3. from ICM,
you push and he fold 24.4
you push and win 29.9
fold 21
assuming if he call, you are 60% to win, and if he fold your push 50% of time, then pushing is better EV than folding, but pushing is definitely more risk than just call. Compared to folding, if you call, 1/3 time you increases chip by 550 and 2/3 time you lose another 100. A definite + ChipEV move than folding.

So of course, comparing calling with push is complicated becuse you have to know his calling percentage. But at 50%, I definitely like calling. /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

I've changed my mind. I think calling is better. If you run the ICM calculations for calling, you'll see that even if you fold 100% of the time that you miss, and do nothing better than break even the other 1/3 of the time, your equity is better than it is for folding. With a more realistic figure, like an average of +200 chips when you hit your hand, the ICM equity jumps to 0.26. You'd have to make some mighty favorable assumptions in an ICM calculation for pushing preflop to get that number. So, I think I was wrong. Calling looks to be safer and more +$EV than pushing.

[Phil Van Sexton]

[ QUOTE ]
Not to be result-oriented, but the fact that you say "2 other possible outcomes" makes me think you split.

[/ QUOTE ]

Other than him folding, the "2 other possible outcomes" I was referring to were: "he calls, I win" and "he calls, I lose".

Split is a 3rd possibility. A 4th possibility would be if he unplugged his network cable and disconnected when facing my bet. It would probably be easier to disregard these last 2 possibilities.

[dfscott]

[ QUOTE ]
A 4th possibility would be if he unplugged his network cable and disconnected when facing my bet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not to completely hijack the thread, but as a SnG rookie, what happens then? I know in a normal ring game, the player would be treated as all-in pre-flop. Are SnGs the same?

I ask because I got HU in a SnG last night and got the dreaded "connection lost" message for about 10 seconds before everything came back. That was a long 10 seconds with me yelling "no! no! no!" at the screen the whole time.